A.G. Gancarski
It was High Noon in Jacksonville on Tuesday when Gov. Rick Scott got on the microphone at the winter meeting of the Florida Sheriffs at the Hyatt Hotel.
Gov. Scott had a message to deliver, just hours after unveiling a budget with public safety enhancements.
Scott’s new budget earmarks $5.1 billion for public safety, including a $14.6 million spend on 5 percent pay raises for Florida’s law enforcement officers, $5.8 million to FDLE to hire 46 counterterrorism employees, and $45 million to boost correctional officers’ pay.
The budgets for both corrections and public safety, meanwhile, see year over year increases — though nothing dramatic.
The corrections budget increased by $126 million year over year, with 327 new positions in a $2.53 billion corrections budget.
The law enforcement budget increased by approximately $5 million since 2016, coming in at $302 million, with 51 positions added.
Scott noted that the current budget allows for upgrades in counterterrorism, pay raises for correctional workers, and “other things” that will arise during the session.
Tourists wouldn’t come to Florida, Scott said, if they didn’t feel safe — a product of effective law enforcement.
“The most important thing we can do,” Scott said, “is keep everybody safe.”
Much of what Scott said was familiar to those who listen to him regularly.
But for the sheriffs, who greeted him and bade him farewell with a standing ovation, that was enough.
